In Which Peter Parker is Literally 'spider man'
by nekolcairw
Summary: Ft. multiverse confusion, Charlotte the spider, and as inter-dimensional rift as deus ex machina
1. Peter Parker, spider man

**a/n:**  
some ground rules:  
\- Peters are a bit aged up! Like early twenties

no powers 'verse:  
\- Tony Stark is still billionaire scientist extraordinaire & Bruce Banner still has a bajillion PhDs. Peter fanboys.  
\- Not really sure what the other Avengers/heroes/powered-peoples are doing, but they all still exist, probably

This was mainly inspired by a Tumblr post (I can't find it now D:) It was basically about how there must be a Peter who's known as 'spider man' just because he really likes spiders.

No one really asked for this, but I did it anyway. I'm really sorry.

* * *

Peter must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Or more like… in the wrong bed?

He had stayed late at the lab last night as he was prone to do. It didn't really matter—no one to come home to. And that wasn't sad! Anyways, it was more like no _person_ to come home to. Instead, it was an assortment of terrariums and sample jars of every imaginable shape and size, floor to ceiling, on every surface—all full of his precious _children_, his beautiful _babies_, his—well, Peter was getting off track.

Needless to say, his apartment was a living nightmare for most people. And no, his landlord did **not** need to know.

Peter frowns as he looks around the familiar room. His old bedroom, he slowly comes to realize. At May's. _Hey, wait a minute._

He stares up at the ceiling through glasses that sit askew on his face. He's still in yesterday's lab coat. _Well, fifteen more minutes can't hurt_, he figures, closing his eyes. Future Peter can have jurisdiction over this one.

* * *

May had been as supportive as she could have been of Peter's hobby-turned-obsession-turned-career. Ben had too when he was alive.

May had really gone above and beyond. But she had understandably drawn the line when Peter's collection had started to overflow the confines of his bedroom, infiltrating more unconventional parts of their home. She confronted him when his pets had begun to take over the pantry. It hadn't left any bad blood between them and they had gone apartment hunting together. Her vetting process was thorough and deadly. Peter felt as though he should've been a little more embarrassed.

He always visits when he can, and May comes over nearly every Sunday to bolster his fridge's meager rations. Just with groceries. (Thank God.)

* * *

Currently, May is talking at him over vaguely-shaped breakfast things. He thought he'd seen the last of vaguely-shaped breakfast things six months ago. Reality seemed to be disintegrating all around him.

"Peter!" May is looking expectantly at him. "Are you listening to me?"

"Um," Peter says eloquently.

May shoos him out of the house since it's clear that Peter cannot be relied on for friendly breakfast conversation. She also says that she has a late shift that night and Peter should take care of his own dinner, he's an adult goddamnit.

After he leaves, Peter ends up dazedly circling the block three times.

* * *

Peter Parker loves spiders.

At the age of four, he fell in love in approximately the time it took for the daddy-long-legs to pick its way over his brightly colored shoes and socks.

(So, by extension, he loves all arachnids, as he later learns that daddy-long-legs are not technically spiders. He digresses.)

The spindly creature was all legs, maneuvering the Velcro straps with ease, its motion lightning-quick; constant and bewitching. Apparently, he'd made an attempt to crawl after it out the door before Uncle Ben had safely swept him up.

However, that had not put a damper on Peter's self-appointed mission to seek out all spiders. All of them.

To Peter, the world had been made anew with the knowledge that such creatures inhabited it.

* * *

He figures that he should make his way back to his apartment. He's not quite sure _why_ he'd woken up at May's, but he supposes worse things could've happened. Cautiously entertaining the theory that _something_ must've happened to cause him to forget last night, but then _somehow_ he'd gotten to May's, he counts himself lucky.

Then again, May hadn't said anything over breakfast, had she? Admittedly, he'd been spacing out a bit, but she hadn't sounded nearly as angry as his hypothesis warranted.

Peter shivers, remembering the last time he'd come home drunk.

He hopes that everyone's all right. He doesn't trust many people with them, save for Gwen or MJ when he's out of the city. And Harry's the absolute last resort. He quickens his pace, descending the subway stairs.

* * *

His first capture was a garden spider. Housed in a jam jar, the textured glass slightly warped her black and yellow patterning. That didn't deter him from watching her constantly, often accompanied by the family cat.

Eight thin, articulated legs tapped out erratic rhythms against the walls of her transparent trap. Four sets of eyes glinted back at him in the right light. She was beautiful. She was mysterious. Peter wanted to know more. He needed to know more.

He did his research and kept her well and alive, dropping in her meals as needed—little flurries of life abruptly cut short.

He'd proudly done one such demonstration for his first-grade class. His schoolmates were less than pleased. That particular show-and-tell session had had parently writing and calling in complaints. They were excessively vicious for the matter at hand. May and Ben had come to his defense with a vengeance and Peter loved them all the more for it, but from that point on, he decided to keep his interests more to himself.

* * *

He eventually made it back to his neighborhood. Today he learned that virtuous people existed. People who would lend their subway passes to disheveled, college-aged-looking kids who didn't have their wallets.

Turning onto his block, he suddenly realizes that he doesn't have his keys. He bites back a curse and May's voice scolds him from the back of his mind on cue.

Parker Luck strikes again.

* * *

One day, he came home to the jar knocked off the windowsill, the cat perched on the sill, and her—tragically still—dangling from the cat's mouth by a leg.

That evening, Ben gently explained the world to him. Something about the insects he gave her, something about the cat, something about circles of life. It was vaguely reminiscent of a movie about lions and kings, and Peter accused him of this, feeling prickly. Ben had chuckled, ruffling his hair.

Later that night, the three of them watched _The Lion King_ together and Peter didn't shove the cat off his lap when she'd come around purring.

The next day, they went to the pet shop to pick out a small terrarium for next time. And inevitably, next time came quickly. Terrariums multiplied; makeshift containers joined their ranks in time.

And then there was Ben.

* * *

(_Something about control. Something about tangibility. Something about—_)

Crickets? _Sure._ Mantids? _Sayonara._ Goldfish? _In ya go._ He watched them all disappear.

When he picks out the hollowed shells and fragments that are left behind, he can feel them. And they're real. A spattering of scales, slivers of legs, shards of wings.

"Isn't it enough, Peter?" May asked quietly one evening. It'd been a grasshopper that night. The translucent wings scattered rainbows in the low light.

"Peter?" Softly. She'd come to stand beside him. Delayed, the guilt welled up, like the beads of blood on the back of his hand. He'd been careless.

He bit his lip and rainbows shattered in his grip. May smoothed his hair and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. Routine set in and they treated his hand together.

One step at a time.

* * *

No keys, no wallet, no phone.

But he had found Charlotte in his lab coat pocket, so now he's in Papa Spider Mode, lecturing her and pacing, warding off New Yorkers left and right.

She's a golden orb-weaver and one of his latest acquisitions from an exotic pet expo he'd gone to last month. At the moment, she's his favorite (though he'd never say that out loud). She is by far the sassiest spider he's ever known and he would die for her.

* * *

He handed the list of instructions to Gwen with the utmost seriousness. An amused smile graced her lips and she only raised one eyebrow at the lamination because she's nice like that. Peter's a simple guy and he, too, makes impulsive late-night online purchases. Peter's going to get his money's worth, goshdarnit.

"I'm lucky to have you two," Peter said solemnly. He was going away for the weekend; Gwen and MJ were spider-sitting.

"Aren't you sweet," MJ grinned, patting his cheek.

When he came back with ten new spiders, they'd already set up the living room, intervention-style. There were even refreshments.

"Out," Peter ordered.

"You're an addict, Peter," MJ said plainly. He looked to Gwen, but even she offered no sympathies, only nodded her head in agreement. Peter felt a stab of betrayal.

He shepherded them out of his apartment and didn't feel too bad about it when he heard them collapse into giggles as soon as he closed the door.

* * *

Name-calling comes with the territory of adolescence. Blame it on the mean-spiritedness of children at that age, or perhaps something darker. In any case, there was no doubt that Peter Parker was the stereotypical target. A bespectacled, painfully-shy, little nerd? Orphaned? Dead uncle? The narrative practically wrote itself. And his spidery obsession had only amplified it.

May had worried. She'd done an awful lot of that as Peter grew up. While other kids were out playing ball in the streets, Peter would rather be up to his elbows in spiders. It was just what he'd rather do. But the bullying certainly didn't make him think that anything else would be better.

* * *

At university, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson sweep into his life in spades of color. Then Harry Osborn does too, more like in shades of monochrome, Peter will muse later. He doesn't think they'll stick around for long and yet—

When he finally lets them visit his apartment, Gwen immediately declares it her mission to wrangle his collection into some semblance of order, armed with an advanced color-coding system and a label maker. Because really, how has Peter managed until now? ("_And you just got five more last week?!_") And then MJ and Harry are daring each other with various trials of endurance, all involving his pets. (Tarantulas now, they're working their way up to the scorpions. _Hmm, maybe Peter should nip that in the bud…_)

Apparently, this is Peter's life now.

(He's never been happier.)

* * *

Nicknames persist - just not with the same malicious intent.

It's MJ who comes up with the majority of them. Webhead. Webs. Spidey.

("Nothing but spiders in that head of yours!" She laughed, mussing his hair. Peter spluttered indignantly, flushing red.)

Most all of them had caught on with Harry, so Peter finally graduated from Parker.

Gwen, bless her, just calls him Peter.

* * *

Peter puts Charlotte in his breast pocket and tells her to stay. He climbs the steps of the walk-up. Perhaps one of his neighbors could help him if they were home or on their way out.

Peter likes his neighbors. It was one of the things he'd been most worried about, but May had reassured him.

His reputation as the 'spider man' had been revealed far more quickly than he'd expected. His initial plan was to ease them into it if he could. It was only considerate. He figured that they would want to be apprised of the small (mostly venomous) menagerie they were now living in close proximity to.

But he hadn't really planned any further beyond that notion.

It actually happened on one of his first nights there when the guy living across the hall had happened to glimpse the inside of his apartment. And then he had run out of the building, fairly hysterical, a flash of bright red hair. The rest of his neighbors had come up, concerned by the commotion and Peter fielded introductions with all the grace he could muster.

Ron still assiduously avoids him (he'd only learned his name from the buzzer listing), but the rest of the building has inexplicably taken a shine to him.

They even don't seem too bothered by his pets, as long as he keeps them well-contained.

* * *

His downstairs neighbor calls him Petey and likes to bring him fast food of the Mexican variety. On Tuesdays. After some initial confusion, Peter looks forward to it now. They alternate whose apartment they meet in each week and veg out with video games afterward. He's gotten used to Peter's collection quickly, delightedly calling it cute and ironic, of all things.

("What do you mean by that?"  
"Never you mind, Petey!"  
"Whatever, Wade.")

Oddly enough, the man also constantly smells of gunpowder. Peter has not ventured to ask yet.

* * *

Karen and Jessica are students going to ESU and they live immediately below him. They complain to him about courses and professors and other college woes. Peter sympathizes. He'd been there. He offers what support he can. Textbooks, for one.

They like to sing-song 'spider man' at him whenever they see him, especially in public. They've recently come up with a little ditty that sounds like it could be the theme to a 60's cartoon show. It's actually pretty catchy, but Peter won't let them know he thinks so.

Additionally, they also frequently set and break records of taking the stairs two (three..! _four!_) at a time up to Peter's, and he can usually predict their arrival due to the screaming and cursing that precede their visits. Spiders seem to have an affinity for their home as well.

"Why don't you guys get some insecticide?" He suggests one day. "Or you could rub lemon juice on the walls? They don't like that." He carefully cups the little house spider in his hands as he steps down from the stool. "There's also a lot of natural oils that repel…" he trails off when he notices their twin expressions of horror.

"Aren't they, like, your brethren?"  
"We're not gonna kill another guy's bro!"

Peter doesn't know whether to be offended or touched. He settles for something between the two.

* * *

There's a little boy named Jack who lives with his mother on the first floor. And he's become attached to him. Or maybe more like attached to his collection. He finds them, like, really, really cool. His words. Good words. Peter is moved on behalf of his pets.

When he can, Peter babysits. He can tell Laura is eternally grateful when he does. He thinks of Aunt May and paying it forward.

Jack also visits him regularly for guided tours and Peter is more than happy to oblige. On occasion, and under his careful supervision, he lets Jack handle his friendliest tarantula, Aragog.

* * *

And then there's Mrs. Fernandez on the first floor too. He's 99.9% sure that she and May are in cahoots in making sure he's fed. Small three-course meals often appear on his welcome mat out of thin air (usually when old university habits resurface; instant ramen again becoming breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

She's taken Peter under her wing and into her kitchen after that one time he'd self-deprecatingly mentioned his subpar cooking skills. Also in confidence, he tentatively relayed tales of May's cooking, and she'd patted his hand with the promise of foolproof recipes to pass on to her.

Here, in this small, six-unit walk-up, he feels relied on; wanted. It's nice. He's slowly getting used to it.

* * *

He starts to realize that something's up when he doesn't find his name on the listing. Or any of his neighbors' names for that matter.

And then he starts to recall all the little things that aren't quite adding up as they should. He registers a small seed of panic taking root within him.

And when the giant robot arm crashes into the sidewalk, missing his toes by an inch, it's just another thing that tips him off. _Hey, wait a second._


	2. (nearly) one and the same

The giant robot menace is now in pieces. Its sparking parts are starting street fires. Is anyone taking care of that anytime soon? But Peter can't bring himself care about any of that right now.

That's because THE Tony Stark is standing right in front of him, staring him down and giving off distinct dad vibes which are, admittedly, odd and slightly unnerving but he can ignore all that because _itsTonyStark_—

"Again, what were you doing down there, Peter?" Stark questions, crossing his arms.

There are a plethora of questions running through Peter's mind. Perfectly good, reasonable questions. He should be asking them. Yet somehow, they're all being overridden by _ohmygodTonyStarkistalkingtoMEandknowsMYname_ and variations of the like.

The truth comes out on autopilot.

"Um, walking back home? Er, well, back to my aunt's house, actually. My, uh, apartment's like… not mine… anymore, or something?" Peter still needs to get all of this straight in his mind.

There are other people gathering around them now, staring strangely at Peter. There's a man holding a suspiciously large bow, which also looks surprisingly technical. A redheaded woman stands beside him, clad in all black. _And thenohmygodisthatBruceBanner_—

Peter's attention span is usually better than this, but in this situation (Tony Stark AND Bruce Banner? Within two feet of his person? _Come on!_), who could really blame him?

"I've read absolutely all your work, Dr. Banner!" Peter is suddenly rambling nonstop, "I found your theories on—"

It's probably a few minutes later that Peter finally stops to take a breath.

Dr. Banner blinks at him in confusion. "You _proofread_ my work, Peter."

Well, that was news to him.

Peter dot exe has stopped working.

* * *

"-we broke him!" A panicked voice comes from his left.

"Ugh." Peter's head hurts. He's lying on the ground for some reason.

"He lives." A surprisingly gentle and relieved tone comes from somewhere above him. "What were you rambling on about, kid?"

Peter blinks groggily, sits up and for the first time, properly takes in the scene before him.

Tony Stark is wearing (encased in..? er, inside?) some kind of high-tech metal suit, deep red and burnished gold, kneeling beside him. The archer, the woman in black, and Dr. Banner are hovering to his left, peering concernedly over Stark's shoulder. And now, there's a blond man in blue with a large, round shield, and—does that guy have _wings?!_

He takes it all in with remarkable calm. The streets are still smoking and severed robot limbs are lying all about. And then—

"Oh—!" The group looks cautiously optimistic for his epiphany.

"Is this, like, cosplay?"

* * *

It takes them a bit to disprove the cosplay theory—

(_Peter found it a bit hard to reconcile Tony Stark with cosplay (much less as someone who would get a whole team together!) Peter was impressed and _definitely not_ envious._

_"Wha-? _Cosplay?_ No!" A decidedly defensive response._

_"I won't tell anyone, Mr. Stark," Peter smiled kindly. The archer is busting a gut in the background and Stark looks like he's about to have an aneurysm._

_"Did you not see that giant robot?" Stark managed to grit out. "It just tried to _kill_ you."_

_"If you say so, Mr. Stark," Peter said gravely. Immersion is important._)

—but they get there eventually.

(_"So… not cosplay," Peter concludes._

_Stark narrows his eyes. "No."_

_Peter frowns, then brightens. "Well, you _could_, especially with all of this—" Peter gestured around._

_"_Peter._"_)

"Do you really not know who we are, kid?" Something in his tone gives Peter pause.

A beat.

"I'm sorry," he says. He means it.

Silence falls and he hurries to fill it.

"I know you, Mr. Stark, sir, and you Dr. Banner, I mean, _of course_, you're famous! But I…" He looks around at everyone else.

"Did you hit your head, Pete?" The blond man asks, not unkindly, placing his hand on Peter's forehead in a familiar manner. Peter jerks back a little on instinct, instantly feeling bad after he does.

"Um, I mean, it's possible? I don't really remember last night. But I do remember yesterday. And today's been really weird…" Peter blinks, trying to piece his memories together. The man nods to himself, thoughtful.

"All right, then. Let's do some introductions and then you can start from the beginning."

* * *

The atmosphere becomes something more relaxed as weapons and armor are set aside, and everyone sits down to talk.

He learns that they're actually heroes. Bona fide _superheroes_. The Avengers.

_All right, all right. That's cool, that's cool._

Captain America. Iron Man. The Hulk. Black Widow. Hawkeye. Falcon.

Steve, Tony, Bruce, Natasha, Clint, and Sam, respectively. There are more. Names that don't register with Peter, but he nods along anyways.

_This is fine, just fine._

Yes, that giant robot was real and yes, they just saved his life. Peter belatedly thanks them, feeling small.

It earns him chuckles and hair ruffling.

"Anytime, kiddo." Somehow, he knows it's not really meant for him.

And then it's his turn.

* * *

They listen in relative silence, patient as he hesitantly starts with the various minutiae of the morning. He finds himself focusing on the innocuous, feeling increasingly self-conscious as they pay attention to his every word. He makes his way through the day as best he can until he gets to the point where things start to get fuzzy.

"So, I was late at the lab again—"

"Oh yeah?" This seems to pique Tony's interest. "What were you up to?"

It wasn't Tony's fault; assumedly he didn't know, but the switch had just been flipped and Peter immediately brightens, eagerly launching into an explanation of his research. It's not often that he was a willing audience, so he takes every chance he gets.

So he's off to the races, rambling about the tensile strength of spider silk and the possibilities of synthesizing it and the various hazards that come with mass spider farming and the tests he's been doing with the Darwin's bark spider he recently got and—

He doesn't notice them all staring at him in varying degrees of shock.

"Wait, wait, wait, _you_—why, wait, never mind. Er, how?" And there's the other switch.

Peter's eyes mist over and he stares beyond them into the distance, heart clenching in fond remembrance, "I got a research grant," he says with feeling.

"Of course you would," Tony mutters.

"Tony, let's let Peter finish." Steve turns his attention back to Peter. "Okay, so after that…?"

"Just went home for the night, I'm pretty sure…"

"To May's?"

"Well, I ended up there for some reason, but—" Peter stops._ Hold up._ "Um, how do _you_ know my aunt's name?" The panic returns suddenly and perhaps it should've been there all along, but hindsight is 20/20.

It's Natasha who calms him down.

"Peter, it's all right. It's safe. You're safe. Please just bear with us for now. Can you do that?" It's oddly comforting. Peter hesitantly nods.

"Okay."

* * *

All right, so Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

He has the ability to stick to any surface with just his hands and feet, has a special sixth 'spidey-sense', has the strength proportionate to that of a spider, and so goes on the laundry list of superpowers he'd developed after being bitten by a radioactive spider.

Because yeah, that happened.

Furthermore, Peter does not have his own apartment, does not need glasses, is not out of university yet, and does not study spiders for a living because, and here's the kicker:

Peter Parker hates spiders.

However, at the moment, Peter Parker is anxiously shifting Charlotte from hand to hand, feeling acutely scrutinized and generally unnerved.

She'd emerged from his pocket sometime during the explanations and scared the living daylights out of Clint. Running down his arm and waving her front legs defensively, Peter's heart had melted. "_My child._" He'd whispered reverently.

The Avengers had backed off to give him some time to think and let everything sink in. Tony and Bruce are holding close council. He can hear talk of the multiverse and 'how will even find him? '

Natasha sits beside him, a calming presence. It's rather ironic; she is the Black Widow.

"Well, I'm not any of those things," Peter muses after a while of internally wrestling with newfound cosmic mystery, "so am I really Peter?"

"Oh," she arches an eyebrow, "a philosopher."

"Not usually," he says. Then, just a touch rueful, "Is he?" She doesn't respond but instead offers her hand out for Charlotte to inspect. He watches his spider willingly climb onto the woman's hand. Natasha delicately strokes the spider's abdomen with a single finger, her sharp features melting into something softer.

Peter deems her safe. She must be.

"Of course, you're Peter," she says deliberately, giving him a small smile. "Just not our Peter."

* * *

The rift appears as if on cue. A swirling vortex of darkness and stars. A white-faced Peter Parker stumbles out and falls to his knees. He's shaking something fierce and muttering madly to himself. Peter can glimpse the familiar shapes of his apartment through the rift.

Charlotte attaches a line to his wrist and descends to his double's eye level and that's what pushes Peter the Second over the edge and he promptly faints.

"Now that wasn't very nice, was it?" He swears she's smug when she clambers onto his palm again. He tries for stern admonishment, but it's no use; he can never stay mad at her for long.

* * *

When Peter comes to, he immediately scrambles backward, right up the wall of a nearby building and refuses to come down until the spider is contained.

It's kind of amazing. And the scientist in him wants to see everything.

Clint and Sam happily oblige, helping to demonstrate Spider-Man's amazing spidey-sense and acrobatic prowess.

("For science!" They'd cheered and aimed projectiles.  
"Will you stop throwing things at me!")

But really, it kept boiling down to Peter slyly wondering aloud, 'how can someone who doesn't even like spiders be _Spider-Man_? ' and, to his point, he'd offered Charlotte to his offended self. She performed spectacularly every time and Peter responded in kind in a grand effort to keep her away.

It ended with Peter storming off to petulantly hang upside down from the palm of the robot's severed hand in, admittedly, a rather spider-like fashion.

And Peter somehow felt immensely fond. This must be what self-love felt like. Or something of the sort.

* * *

Tony Stark and Co. had given up on the both of them and were now working on the aftermath of the robot. The sounds of scraping metal fill the air as day falls to dusk. They leave the Peters to themselves.

The vortex is still open and hovers nearby, humming with cosmic energy, Peter's apartment just beyond its threshold of dark matter. The universe waits patiently to right itself.

Peter had coaxed himself down and now some more Science was happening.

They were sitting cross-legged on the cracked concrete. Peter's fingertips are under his scrutiny through the lens of his portable microscope. Peter II's only sitting as close as he needs to because Charlotte is currently perched regally on his shoulder.

"Amazing," he murmurs.

"You're missing out," Peter replies dryly.

"I wonder." Peter drops one of his web-shooters into his lap. He studies the contraption, impressed, plucking at some test strands.

"Maybe not."

Peter wonders how much they have in common but he feels that he already knows. He wonders how much they don't and when Peter's shoulders fall slightly, he feels the motion himself, a familiar ghost of a sensation.

"You okay?" He watches Spider-Man look back at the Avengers. There's a sizeable heap of scrap metal now, banter and laughter bouncing off of it.

"Yeah," he says softly, "I expect I am." '_And you?_' goes unsaid.

He thinks about May. He thinks about Ben. About Gwen and MJ and Harry. About his odd medley of neighbors. About his spiders.

His smile is genuine.

* * *

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"Your apartment totally blows."

"It really doesn't," Peter responds genially.

* * *

When Charlotte makes her way down his arm, she is the champion of calm. Other Peter begrudgingly gives her the smallest of pokes.

Peter beams.

(And when she suddenly dashes up the length of his arm, Peter absolutely does NOT have a screaming fit.)

* * *

Tony had tossed a phone through the vortex after him (_StarkPhone!_) because really, what are a few more wrinkles in the fabric of the multiverse? Peter trusts them. They seem to deal with this sort of thing on a regular basis.

To keep in touch, or something of the like.

Peter feels warm. It's nice.


End file.
